Lewin's First Walk

Lewin, Dan and Melissa took their first walk as a family on Wednesday, May 13. It was a short walk around the neighborhood, but enough to get some fresh air and stretch Mom and Dad's legs. Lewin slept pretty soundly the entire time. The walk was marked by a sendoff from a baby catbird in the driveway and was protected by an Air National Guard flyover. He was pretty tired after his walk and took a long nap.

T minus 1 (as Dan Coady would say)

With one day to go until Baby Coady's estimated due date, the only excitement around here is that we received a wonderful gift from friends for the little one. A package full of books! Many thanks to Steve and Darcy for their excellent choices (Baby Signs, Fish Kisses, The Very Quiet Cricket, Words, Pat the Bunny, Goodnight Moon). We can't wait to start story time!!

Not much is happening on our baby birthin' front, though friends John and Jen welcomed baby Gus into the world this afternoon. Jen and Melissa shared the same due date. Perhaps Melissa should add some hot sauce to her burger at dinner tonight. Nah, there will be no rushing Baby C. He or she will arrive when they're darn good and ready. For now, Melissa is trying not to drive Dan crazy (ok, too crazy) and just hopes that common sense prevails before she commits a random act of decorating or crafting. Fine, she'll be honest, it will most likely be an act of cleaning.

In other news, Melissa has actually started getting her bag ready for the hospital. At least Dan and Baby Coady are all packed and ready to go!

Update: 9 PM and going strong. Our gDiapers are loaded and ready for their first use. Don't know what a gDiaper is? Check it out at http://www.gdiapers.com/.

Final Day in the Office

Before maternity leave, that is. Melissa wrapped up a bunch of stuff and did a fair job clearing excess paper/extraneous file materials from her desk. She's hoping she left project-related tasks in good enough condition for whomever is next in line to deal with them in her absence. Regardless, it's now time to focus even more on getting the house ready for Baby Coady.

Tomorrow will bring with it a shopping trip for "essentials" for both Momma-to-be and Baby (with Gram-to-be). Mostly fun stuff like onesies, sleepers, and diapers! Dad-to-be and Grandpa-to-be have been slaving away on Baby's room and it's looking wonderful. The door has been moved (to accommodate the upcoming renovation) and the bamboo flooring has been installed (and looks amazing!). It's so exciting to see all the pieces come together.

Though a few more days would be nice, and there's no reason to think we don't have a few more days at least, we're looking forward to meeting Lil' C sooner than later!

Progress!

Yesterday afternoon came and went with another weekly visit to the doctor. All is well. Melissa is measuring at 38 cm (Dan kept this week's tape, just in case it's the last one...) and, according to the doctor, is 1 cm dilated. While that doesn't mean anything relative to the start of labor, Melissa chooses to look at it as 10 percent progress. Accurate? No, but she can make numbers say whatever she wants!

A Different Kind of Countdown...

Melissa's countdown to her final day of [pre-maternity leave] work has begun! As of the end of business this Friday, May 1, she will have wrapped up and transitioned her projects as much as is humanly possible. While she's still feeling good and up to the day-to-day aspects of her job, she's looking forward to the pre-baby (fingers crossed!) break to devote more of her time to nesting (i.e. cleaning, organizing...re-organizing...) at home, as well as spending some quality pre-baby time with Dan and the furbabies.

Baby "stuff" organizational suggestions are welcome. She's thinking by category for gear (e.g. bedding/bath linens, diapering, feeding, toys) and age for clothing (newbie, 0-3 months, 3-6 months). Any practical/tried and true wisdom will be appreciated!

Oh, yes, and we will leave you with this.

Stuff for Baby Coady

We finally did it! We started our baby registry at Babies R' Us (Registry #: 92510166). Checking your regisrty online can be funny. There are quite a few Coadys and there's another Melissa Coady (in NJ) whose co-registrant is named Dan (O'Brien). A cute little coincidence. No worries, they were due in February 2008.

We've been quite fortunate to receive many gently used baby items thanks to the generosity of our friends and their desire to get this stuff out of their homes! Some of the hand-me-downs include a crib (from Nicole and Jeff Chu, for which we temporarily traded a toddler bed from the Veceres), a bassinet (from Mike Kolendo and Cindy Stein), a bouncy seat and swingy seat (again from Mike and Cindy), two Boppy pillows (from Carrie and Mark Hawkins), a breast pump (also from the Hawkinses), a diaper pail (from the Chus), bottles, cloth diapers, sleepsacks, blankets...the list actually goes on and on. I just don't have the recall capacity to list everything and everyone.

Somewhat needless to say, but I'll say it anyway, we struggled a bit to generate a registry of useful items. We managed and will go back for round 2 after some more research and after we (ok, I) recover from being in the store for somewhere between 2 and 3 hours. I think the major part of the battle was not getting completely sucked in by all the incredibly adorable stuff. But really, how can anything that small not be adorable?! I think we did an ok job fighting the total sucker bait, though I know I fell for a few things (such as the Classic Pooh hooded towel set...).

I'm sure Dan will keep me on the straight and narrow during our next visit...

Kickin' It - Part 2

The baby has been very active lately, especially if I'm sitting still for awhile (e.g. driving) or lying down in bed at night. We've progressed from me feeling it (internally) to Dan feeling it to me seeing it. The funny thing, if you can call it funny since it's not really in the ha-ha range, is that I would have expected some sort of discomfort with all the movement - especially some of the bigger motions. Not a bit of it. Maybe that comes later when there's less room?

Kickin' it

While resting comfortably at Maureen and Rafe's home in NJ the other night, baby was very active. These weren't the first movements Melissa could feel, but they were Dan's first (and second, and third...). A very exciting moment for both.